Resilience Thrift: Strategies for Adapting to Climatic Change in Housing for the Urban Poor

The consequences of climate change – droughts, rising temperatures, increased flood events, water crisis, depleted groundwater levels and more – have affected millions in India. On top of this, urbanization increases disasters’ severity by adding population to cities whose infrastructure services are already limited. The urban poor are the most vulnerable. Many of Ahmedabad’s low-income settlements are at a high risk of flooding, facing shortages of freshwater supplies and other essential resources. Informal settlements are densely populated, poorly ventilated, and often made from corrugated metal and plastic sheets, which cannot defend against vagaries of natural calamities or increasingly adverse heat conditions. The intersection of poor construction quality with settlements located on sites of elevated exposure to climate disasters drastically increases their risks. This studio works together with SAATH to co-create local solutions to help these communities adapt and build their own resilience through design research and built pilot projects.